1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hemoglobin and hematocrit analyzer, and an analyzing method thereof. Particularly, the present invention relates to an analyzer which is able to analyze the hemoglobin and hematocrit of a patient accurately and give feedback of the test result to the database of the analyzer in order to improve the accuracy of the test.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hemoglobin is a protein present in blood, and the hematocrit is the proportion of erythrocytes contained in a unit volume of blood. Since hemoglobin is a component of erythrocytes, which are also called red blood cells, there is a specific ratio between the amount of hemoglobin and the hematocrit. Hemoglobin concentration and the hematocrit are necessary blood tests in a general blood test panel, as they may be helpful for medical personnel to know the composition of the blood of a patient in order to determine the physiological and biochemical state of the patient. For a patient suffering from severe bleeding, the hemoglobin concentration and the hematocrit may drop rapidly. Hence, the hemoglobin concentration and the hematocrit are important indexes to determine whether a patient needs a blood transfusion or not.
In general clinical medical practice, blood tests for hemoglobin and hematocrit take at least 30 minutes to 1 hour to carry out, not to mention any additional waiting times, such as patient waiting times outside the consulting room prior to blood extraction. However, if the trauma of a patient that has suffered an accident is not obvious then this makes it hard to determine if the patient has suffered from excessive blood loss without a blood test and so it is unknown how long it is safe for the patient to wait for the blood test results. Hence, in an emergency, clinical doctors are only able to determine the patient's blood loss, and therefore need for a blood transfusion, based on their clinical experience and this assessment is generally carried out in urgent emergency situations. Given that the occurrence of human error in this assessment is unavoidable, there is a need to develop a method that takes less time than the conventional blood tests, and which is able to accurately determine the patient's blood loss.
In recent years, point of care testing or bedside testing has become a novel trend in the development of medical diagnostic testing, where the general concept is of a medical diagnostic technology that is able to perform a rapid and efficient analysis at the patient's bedside. Such medical diagnosis technology may be employed at a patient's bedside in a ward or at the point where first aid is being administered, rather than the more traditional method of analyzing samples or specimens in a medical laboratory requiring a wait of hours or days. Point of care medical diagnostic technology has great potential, as it is rapid and efficient with a short test time period for obtaining results or feedback, and, furthermore, is generally simple, low cost, does not require a large amount of sample, and is able to give feedback on the condition of a patient in real-time. Given the advantages in point of care medical diagnosis, it is advantageous to develop and provide a technology for point of care blood testing.